A few times in her wanderings she had seen people, but only from afar, from high up in the air—big and little people, black people, white people, red people, and such as dressed in many colors. She had never ventured close. Once she had caught the glimmer of red near a brook, and thinking it was a bed of flowers had flown down. She found a human being fast asleep among the brookside blossoms. It had golden hair and a pink face and wore a red dress. It was dreadfully large, of course, but still it looked so good and sweet that Maya thrilled, and tears came to her eyes. She lost all sense of her whereabouts; she could do nothing but gaze and gaze upon the slumbering presence. All the horrid things she had ever heard against man seemed utterly impossible. Lies they must have been—mean lies that she had been told against creatures as charming as this one asleep in the shade of the whispering birch-trees.
After a while a mosquito came and buzzed greetings.
“Look!” cried Maya, hot with excitement and delight. “Look, just look at that human being there. How good, how beautiful! Doesn’t it fill you with enthusiasm?”
The mosquito gave Maya a surprised stare, then turned slowly round to glance at the object of her admiration.
“Yes, it is good. I just tasted it. I stung it. Look, my body is shining red with its blood.”
Maya had to press her hand to her heart, so startled was she by the mosquito’s daring.
“Will it die?” she cried. “Where did you wound it? How could you? How could you screw up your courage to sting it? And how vile! Why, you’re a beast of prey!”
The mosquito tittered.
“Why, it’s only a very little human being,” it answered in its high, thin voice. “It’s the size called girl—the size at which the legs are covered half way up with a separate colored casing. My sting, of course, goes through the casing but usually doesn’t reach the skin.—Your ignorance is really stupendous. Do you actually think that human beings are good? I haven’t come across one who willingly let me take the tiniest drop of his blood.”
“I don’t know very much about human beings, I admit,” said Maya humbly.